Cumberland County College president to discuss merger with CCTEC

VINELAND -- Cumberland County College President Ken Ender will present a proposal tonight to combine Cumberland County Technical Education Center and Cumberland County College into one educational entity.

The proposal was made for a county “Blue Ribbon” committee assigned by the county freeholder board to plan for the county technical school's future, headed by county Treasurer Gary Simmerman, according to a copy of the agenda for tonight's Cumberland County College trustee board meeting.

According to the agenda, the proposal is to create a new “Cumberland County Community and Technical College” made up of the county college and technical school.

No further details were made available of the proposal.

Ender declined to comment on it prior to his presentation to the CCC board tonight.

Officials with CCTEC, who are developing their own proposal for the “Blue Ribbon” committee, have opposed combining CCC and CCTEC in the past.

The idea was floated last year in a “concept paper” by Ender, as a way of mitigating costs associated with operating the county technical school.

CCTEC is currently attempting to convert from a part-time to a full-time high school, a change which was supposed to happen last fall, but never occurred after the state Department of Education intervened in the spring.

The conversion could require a multi-million dollar expansion of the technical school's current facilities.